It has been another busy, varied and stimulating year for the department, recently renamed from ‘Archive’ to ‘Archive & Collections’, to more accurately represent the broad range of responsibilities which we now fulfil.
The whole team were heavily involved in the Inn’s celebrations throughout 2023 to mark the 450th anniversary of the completion of Middle Temple Hall. An exhibition was mounted in the library for the duration of Michaelmas Term, telling, through a wealth of original archival material and other collection items, the vibrant and complex story of the Hall both as a building and as the setting for education, dining, entertainment, heraldry and artwork.
Three events were held across the autumn, celebrating the Hall and its importance to the Inn and to the wider legal and cultural spheres. The first of these was a literary occasion entitled ‘This is Shakespeare’ – a conversation between Master Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford, and Master Nicholas Hytner, celebrated director and film producer, discussing Twelfth Night and its Middle Temple connections.
The second was a Treasurer’s Lecture delivered by Master John Baker entitled ‘The Elizabethan Middle Temple and the Rule of Law’, which discussed legal developments during the period of the Hall’s construction, not least the crucial development of habeas corpus, with which Middle Temple Benchers were heavily involved. As part of both events, themed displays of items from the Archive and Rare Books collections, including the Fourth Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, were mounted in the Prince’s Room.
Finally, a Gala Dinner was given in Hall, a memorable occasion to round off the year’s celebrations. The Hall was decked out in all its glory, with an array of the Inn’s finest silver on display (much of it contemporary to the construction of the Hall) and a menu evocative of the feasts of centuries gone by. The choir sang grace from the Minstrels’ Gallery, and after dinner the guests were entertained by a lutenist and vocalist, performing pieces by composers including John Dowland, who performed at the Inn’s Candlemas Feast in 1613. A commemorative brochure was produced for the event, containing reproductions of archival material relating to the Hall, including an array of menus and bills for food and drink over the centuries.
Displays were also curated for two major events in the first half of 2024. The first of these was the dinner in honour of the Irish and Northern Irish Bars, with a display featuring material relating to the Inn’s long-standing, complex and sometimes challenging connections with Ireland and Northern Ireland. The earliest piece included was a commission under the Great Seal commanding the Benchers of the Inns of Court to ensure that Irish students swear the oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, issued by Charles I during the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Other items on display included the admissions as students of the United Irishmen Theobald Wolfe Tone and Henry Sheares, and De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis from the Rare Books collection, a 1584 history of medieval Ireland.
2024’s Lent Reading, delivered by Master Philip Bartle, focussed on three 16th and 17th Century Middle Temple dramatists: Ford, Marston and Webster. A display was mounted in the Prince’s Room which included archival material related to the three dramatists, as well as, more broadly, the Inn’s culture of dramatic and musical performance in the early 17th Century, and the involvement of its members in staging courtly masques and entertainments. On show from the Rare Books collection was our precious edition of Shakespeare’s Fourth Folio, as well as works by Webster and Ford.
Other initiatives this year have included the development of a virtual tour of the historic spaces of the Inn. Using drone footage shot in 2023, this tour will enable users to explore the Hall, Bench Apartments and corridors from anywhere in the world, and learn, as they go, about the Inn’s history, the buildings and the many collections on display, from stained glass and paintings to armour and silverware.
The year also saw the installation, to coincide with the Chelsea Flower Show, of a display in Hall of images of the Inn’s gardens over the centuries, and our regular ‘Archive of the Month’ series has continued, this year covering subjects such as the history of mooting, Temple Bar, clocks and sundials at the Inn, and telecommunications.
We were excited, in March of this year, to welcome our first volunteers into the Archive. This new programme was designed to offer an opportunity for members and friends of the Inn to engage ‘hands on’ with our heritage and collections, as well as supporting the work of the Archive. Our two volunteers have been doing excellent work listing 19th Century correspondence and indexing early 20th Century press cuttings.
We have been kept busy as ever by interesting enquiries from other departments of the Inn, as well as members and Benchers, on many interesting subjects. These have included Middle Templar recipients of the Victoria Cross, the 1924 visit of the American Bar Association, the trial of Roger Casement, Directors of Advocacy, dinner service in Hall in the 19th Century, the tradition of bowing from Plowden’s bust, and the publisher of the first edition of Gulliver’s Travels, who was based at Middle Temple.
As ever, the care and protection of the important collections in our custody is a key aspect of our activity, led by our Conservator. The monument in Temple Church to Edmund Plowden, Treasurer of the Inn 1561-1570 and prime mover behind the construction of the Hall, was in poor repair at the start of the anniversary year. Over the summer of 2023, both this and the monument to Richard Martin, a Middle Templar Called to the Bar in the 1590s, were given a comprehensive stabilisation and restoration treatment by experts in the conservation of church monuments. At the Evensong preceding the Gala Dinner in November, Master Treasurer laid a wreath at Plowden’s tomb, commemorating his leading role as in the Hall’s construction.
The project to refurbish the main silver vault has largely been completed, with the old felt lining of the cabinets replaced by an inert material which absorbs tarnishing chemicals from the air, providing long-term protection for these treasures. A condition and treatment survey has been carried out across the silver collection itself, to identify items in need of cleaning and repair, and a programme of work has begun on the highest-priority pieces.
In August of 2023 our portrait of Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, attributed to Sir Peter Lely, was hung in the north transept of Hall, above the newly installed fire escape staircase. Clarendon was a titanic figure of the mid-17th Century, serving as Lord Chancellor to King Charles II, whose portrait hangs nearby. He was also related to the subjects three other royal portraits, and so his installation in Hall, near his son-in-law (King James II), granddaughter (Queen Anne) and grandson-in-law (William III) represented quite the family reunion.
The team’s vital work behind the scenes to ensure that we are continuing to build a usable, intelligible and representative Archive to pass on to future generations, has continued. The increasing volume of ‘born-digital’ material being transferred to the Archive from different departments is presenting a new challenge, and we are seeking to adapt our existing processes and procedures to accommodate the greater scale and complexity of the information we are receiving. We are also making use of new functionalities and enhancements in Preservica, our digital repository system, to ensure that our born-digital archives are being preserved to as high a standard as our physical collections, and that an effective understanding of their contents and context is being established.
All in all, it has been a rewarding year, in which the department have been involved in and contributed to a very broad range of the Inn’s functions. I and the team look forward to what the ensuing year will bring.
Barnaby Bryan has been with the Inn since 2015. As Archivist & Head of Collections, he is responsible for the management, care and development of the Inn’s extraordinary Archive, and also oversees several of our other historic collections, including paintings, silver, armour and heraldic material. Prior to joining the department, he undertook archival work at various institutions, including King’s College, Cambridge, and Unilever’s corporate archive in Port Sunlight.
